


fly my beautiful pigeons!!! (JJP Fic Amnesty Collection)

by forochel



Category: GOT7
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Chat!fic, Gen, M/M, Not!Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21640261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: plotbunnies I have bellowed in chats about;fics I started and have no energy to finish;and the like
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	1. the star wars AU

**Author's Note:**

> it's been fun!!! I am just Very Tired now and deeply dis-motivated. will try my best to finish the ongoing WiP!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what if jinyoung were a jedi and jaebeom were like han solo basically but in the old republic era

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one basically originated so many moons ago it was in twitter DMs with mia
> 
> so this is a mostly plotted outline that's about 20% filled in and at some point, uh, it's me bellowing chatfic at mia or notes to myself.

**Now**

They landed in the dirt.

Jinyoung rolled with all the grace of a trained Jedi and came up onto one knee. There was brown dust all down one side of his dusty tan robes, but poor Jaebeom had just ... rolled. His face, usually smudged somewhere with engine oil, was even dirtier and he definitely would need a shower once they got back to the ship.

He’d offered, sometime during their long journey from Coruscant, to train Jaebeom to at least reach into the Force enough to save his back any further pain. This had been after the fifth or seventh or thirteenth time — Jinyoung had long since lost track — Jaebeom had chipped away yet again at the very foundations of his faith in the Jedi Code.

“Ah, the thrice-fucked nephew of a —” Jaebeom growled, levering himself what looked like painfully onto his feet, and proceeded to curse so thoroughly and dirtily in Huttese that Jinyoung was blushing by the end of his tirade.

“You invited yourself along,” Jinyoung said, rising and walking over to offer him a hand.

Jaebeom’s eyes flashed when he looked up, but he wasn’t so full of pride to not take Jinyoung’s hand. “I was worried about you, pretty boy.”

Grunting as he pulled Jaebeom to his feet, Jinyoung said, “You should be worrying about yourself.”

“You owe me thousands of credits,” said Jaebeom, patting himself down before sauntering off into the treeline. God, how did he look equally at home in space cantinas _and_ a forest? “I’ve got to keep your organs in your skin all the way through to the other side to get that money.”

“Right,” said Jinyoung drily, following along and casting his senses out for any ... more interesting forms of local flora. “You have to be alive first, though.”

“And, you know, I’ve got two young mouths to feed, a family to support ...”

Jinyoung winced. This was absolutely typical of Jaebeom, to flaunt all the personal attachments he had when he knew. He _knew_. Jinyoung breathed in deep: the sharp, nose-tickling green smell of the forest filling his nose and lungs; let the peace and certitude of things growing and carrying on the way they were meant to fill him; exhaled and let the sudden wave of envy and frustration out with his breath into the Force.

“Yugyeom and Youngjae do eat quite a lot,” he agreed placidly.

Jaebeom shot him a look over his shoulder. “So you understand why I have a personal investment in your wellbeing.”

“Sure,” Jinyoung said, smiling. “Sure.”

It was a peaceful walk. They’d shaken their pursuers midway through their flight and people seemed reluctant to leave the high walls surrounding the trade town. Jinyoung frowned and opened up his sense to the Force some more. Jaebeom, as always, was a warm glowing presence, the gravity of his charisma like a stone creating a dip in the fabric of Jinyoung’s awareness. The plants -- Jinyoung realised with a startle -- the plants liked it.

Again, he wondered how Jaebeom managed to not be taken to the Temple. How his parents had hidden him, when the time came. _Corellians_.

Thus, they got back to the ship without further mishap, and, more crucially, the intelligence that Jaebeom had palmed off the Rodian while Jinyoung distracted him with chatter about the podrace stakes out on Tattooine. A topic of which Jinyoung had known close to nothing, and been very rapidly brought up to speed on by Jaebeom’s enthusiastic crew over the course of their voyage thus far.

He watched as trees curved subtly and gently towards an unnoticing Jaebeom, picking his way along the verge and humming a cheerful tune. The forest covered most of this supercontinent, trading towns dotting it along major roads and minor droveways to the great city in the centre, and its lake. Easy to land a ship in and camouflage, especially with the sort of shielding Jaebeom’s ship had. Smuggler standard, though Jinyoung pretended not to notice the slightly less legal wares stowed away in his hold in exchange for fast and discreet passage.

Coed’wig wasn’t the sort of place, on the face of it, that one would take to be such a dizzying web of intrigue and intra-galactic gossip, but there you had it. With a way of life that was largely dependent on forestry, small-scale pastoralism, veins of trade-friendly ores in the mountains that clustered in the north-eastern quadrant of the super-continent, as well as some nascent eco-tourism ... it was a good cover for also being a hub of the trade of information and supposed sanctuary spot for the spies of conflicting factions. No outright maiming or mruder was allowed.

Stealing information, though, was expected. Anticipated, even.

Jaebeom had been overconfident, though, and Jinyoung had picked up on the tails they had acquired halfway through the main market they’d been wending through on their way back out. Tails who’d managed to follow them despite Jinyoung’s Force suggestion that they look at the spices all the way from Ryloth piled enticingly up as they passed by it.

“Hey,” he’d said in an undertone to Jaebeom, leaning in to be heard over the noise of the market. “We have trouble.”

And then they really did have trouble, as Jaebeom started walking faster and faster, despite Jinyoung’s efforts to slow him down. It wasn’t really Jinyoung’s style to escape climbing over a wall, but — well, the ensuing mad dash through the market had certainly raised heads, and Jinyoung’s last minute intervention to ensure that their tails were ensnared by a very determined Toydarian hawker of second-hand ship parts demanded it. Undoubtedly there would have been more of their friends waiting for them at the main exit out of the market town.

It troubled Jinyoung, though, that the tails the Rodian -- or the Rodian’s masters -- had set on them had been more highly skilled than the usual market urchins people used for these purposes. He had a bad feeling about this mission.

“Shouldn’t we be going into the forest?” he piped up, drawn out of his thoughts by the way the grass was thinning out and distance between the forest and the town walls was widening.

Jaebeom stopped and waited for Jinyoung to come up beside him. “Yeah, but I was hoping you’d know how to get to the ship from here.”

For a space pilot who could plot a navigation route through a star chart in what seemed like a blink of an eye, Jaebeom was utterly helpless once planetside.

“This way,” he said, moving past Jaebeom. “In general.”

“In _general_?” Jaebeom spluttered.

“Don’t question me,” Jinyoung returned over his shoulder, stepping deeper into the gloom of the forest, “when you are the one who asked.”

The Living Force eddied around them gladly, tumultuously, almost like the babbling brooks and waters of Jinyoung’s earliest memories, before he’d been brought to the Temple. There was nothing hostile in it, even though Jinyoung could feel the eyes of many creatures on them. Only curiosity at the daring, perhaps, of these humanoids who dared the forest off the smuggler tracks and forester trails.

He hadn’t ever been this aware of the Living Force, not before starting this mission.

It was slow going, with Jinyoung having to pick their careful way across the undergrowth and — at one point — piggy-back Jaebeom across a muddy pond because he didn’t want to go around it.

They were arguing about how heavy Jaebeom really was when they finally broke across the track that led to the ship.

“Oh,” said Jaebeom, insultingly surprised. “We aren’t lost.”

Again, Jinyoung breathed in deep and exhaled his irritation.

“Your lack of faith in my training is concerning.”

Jaebeom laughed and swung around Jinyoung to lead on.

The smugglers’ trail was narrow and marked out by the thinner undergrowth and obscure signs of various cants in the multiplicity of scripts the galaxy had to offer marked out on the trees. It was easy enough to follow, if one knew what one was looking at.

“We’re back,” Jinyoung called out just as they crossed into the clear patch of undergrowth that the ship had landed in.

Jaebeom looked around suspiciously; he, of course, saw nothing but plant life.

“Hyungie,” Yugyeom exclaimed, as the camouflage shimmered and the boarding ramp appeared, leading into what looked like a stand of trees. He’d taken so quickly to Jinyoung, once he’d learnt that Jinyoung had been born to parents on Naboo, it was a little alarming. Gratifying and alarming. “We thought you’d died!”

Jaebeom snorted and shouldered past him. “You wish.”

“I wasn’t talking to _you_.”

Jinyoung steadfastly kept his back to Jaebeom, despite the _look_ he could feel searing his back.

“We’re alive and well,” he said instead, reaching up and patting Yugyeom on the shoulder as he made his way to his room and the cleanliness its sonic shower promised. “And should be on our way.”

Yugyeom groaned, “Another jump?”

“Just one more,” Jaebeom said, pressing a button in the control panel next to the ramp. “And then we’ll go see Bambam.” There was an awful grinding noise as the ramp retracted and the door hissed shut.

Jinyoung turned fully. “Bambam? Your only obligation is to —”

“He’s our friend on Khun,” explained Jaebeom. “He should be able to help you with your intelligence.”

While Jinyoung had only been a Jedi Knight for five standard years, he had been a Padawan for twice that time before that. He didn’t think he had ever encountered a mercenary so willing to go out of their way to help Jedi in their mission before.

“Well,” Jaebeom said, scratching the back of his head. He walked towards the cockpit, not looking at Jinyoung. Yugyeom followed after, though not without giving Jinyoung an undecipherable look. “If he’s heard anything bad for business is going on, he can let you know.”

**Then**

Missions to the Outer Rim always took at least a few standard weeks, if not months.

There had been one diplomatic standoff within a system that Jinyoung and his Jedi Master, Ju’nho, had spent _months_ travelling to, resolving, and getting back from. He’d learnt the true meaning of patience and tact, then. Hot-headed sixteen-year-old Jinyoung, suffocating in the wrappings of court diplomacy and cultural tradition, and completely bewildered by the complex double, triple-meanings of the courtiers in Baekje.

“Well, Padawan,” Master Ju’nho had said in the privacy of their shuttle on the way back to Coruscant. “I think you ought to draft the report, just to make sure you have internalised your lessons on Baekje.”

And Jinyoung had groaned, to which Master Ju’nho had smiled beatifically, languid and placid and as implacable as one of the many Temple cats that he was known to feed whenever they were back on Coruscant. He remembered, halfway through labouring over the report, that Master Ju’nho had grown up on Baekje, and been discovered nearly too late — when he was almost four.

The lesson there had been to always look for the underneath the underneath; to read between the lines and understand the intention, to see and acknowledge the surface before gliding on past to the heart of the matter.

All this seemed naught when confronted with the matter of Im Jaebeom, Corellian cargo pilot who was just trying to get by, apparently.

Jinyoung had become accustomed to diplomatic missions after so long with Master Ju’nho and then on his own; to employing rhetoric and diplomatic tactics and discerning what people really wanted, that he was entirely disconcerted to have encountered a being who truly did not seem to conceal ulterior motives.

He hadn’t known any of this upon boarding his transport in Coruscant, of course; he’d always believe in maintaining cordial relationships with the pilots taking him across the galaxy to and fro missions, but there was something, when he stepped into the rough warmth of Jaebeom’s Runaway that reminded Jinyoung of something beyond the grasp of his memory.

“We’ve taken a few of your lot around before,” Jaebeom said, barely even giving Jinyoung a glance as he busied himself with charting a navigation route. He’d seemed cold and a little fierce, rough around the edges like a smuggler ought to be; hair swept up off his forehead and stiff with dust and oil, narrow, sharp eyes kohled to keep dust out, ears pierced through with all manner of sharp, curved things.

“It shouldn’t be much trouble, then?” Jinyoung asked, reminding himself that he was a seasoned Jedi Knight and would not be intimidated by an interstellar smuggler trying to make a few extra credits off the Senate.

Jaebeom laughed, short and gruff. Mocking, almost, but Master Ju’nho’s admonitions about not taking things personally were a constant companion. As did his admonitions about abusing the Force to really feel out people’s intentions. There was no need, in this case; credits had been exchanged and Jinyoung was guaranteed passage, mostly safe, on the mission out to investigate rumours of civil war and mediate, if called for, in one of the systems on the Outer Rim.

“Not unless you make trouble.”

The rejoinder was caustic, sardonic, all sorts of things that would’ve made a teenaged Jinyoung flare up, only to be restrained by Master Ju’nho’s hand and calming presence across their training bond.

“I’ll make sure to stay out of your way,” Jinyoung promised, frostier than was his wont upon first meetings with the pilots who were taking him places.

“Youngjae will show you to your quarters,” Jaebeom said shortly, dismissive to the point of rudeness. It was enough to make Jinyoung wonder _which_ Jedi he’d encountered before, that he’d give Jinyoung so cold a welcome. Or perhaps he was just like this with everyone.

A square-faced young man with an amiable mien popped around the corner with a little wave. He, Jinyoung presumed, was Youngjae.

“Don’t mind Jaebeommie-hyung,” Youngjae said cheerfully. Jinyoung was startled, to hear the familiar form of address typical to the Choson Cartel. Not since the mission to Baekje had he heard this. “He’s just hungover from working CoCo Town.”

CoCo Town: in the lower levels, far away from the Jedi Temple. Jinyoung had, of course, been there before, to Dex’s Diner. Another den of sin and iniquity, where much information passed through. Master Ju’nho was particularly friendly with the proprietor, much to a teenage’d Jinyoung’s disquiet the first time he’d tagged along.

“Ah,” said the Jinyoung of the present. “Of course.”

“And we were on our way to Khun, actually,” shared Youngjae, so naturally open and friendly that Jinyoung worried for his future as an interplanetary trading agent, above the law or otherwise. He pushed a door open and gestured Jinyoung in. “So really, it’s no trouble at all!”

“The captain will boot you out of the airlock if you keep on that way.” A lanky Wookie Jinyoung had yet to meet said from behind them, leaning into the doorway.

“What?” said Youngjae. “Jinyoung-sshi will be with us for many parsecs and at least three jumps. Are we supposed to just not say anything when he’s around? This ship isn’t that big, Gyeommie.”

‘Gyeommie’ heaved another a sigh, shaggy golden-brown fur lifting a little with the force of his exhalation.

“I can’t promise not to overhear anything,” Jinyoung said, “but I’m not going to poke my nose into your business. All I want is safe passage to Khun.”

“What’s happening out there, anyway, that the Jedi are interested?” Gyeommie said abruptly. Jinyoung hadn’t known before that Wookies’ mouths could be set petulantly, yet there it was. His brows were furrowed too.

Jinyoung raised his eyebrows. “I should think that keeping our business our own is mutual.”

The boy growled, low in the back of his throat, and was about to open his mouth when a shout carried down the corridor: “KIM YUGYEOM! WILL MY _COPILOT_ PLEASE COME _COPILOT_ AND STOP BOTHERING OUR GUEST!”

It was almost comical, the way Kim Yugyeom’s mouth snapped shut and his eyes went big and round.

“This isn’t over,” he said, as menacingly as an over-grown teddy bear of great resemblance to the sort Jinyoung had in the Temple creche could, before hurrying out.

“Don’t mind him either,” Youngjae said, eyes dancing with laughter. “We just have friends on Khun.”

“Of course,” said Jinyoung graciously. “And are you a copilot as well?”

“Oh, no,” Youngjae sat down on the reading chair tucked into the corner of Jinyoung’s room. “I’m the resident engineer and all-around handy-boy.”

The chair was woven together from a pliable brown material, most likely organic; if not, then a very good likeness of. Unlike the pallets Jinyoung was used to sleeping on during missions, there was a narrow, low bunk built out of the sort of dark wood native to Ithor. The glossy, resinous sheen to it marked it out as the genuine article. The thin mattress was piled with cushions and folded blankets. Underfoot was a deep red rug; Jinyoung was no expert at textiles, but it looked a lot like the meditation rug from Tattooine that Master Ju’nho had in his quarters.

Jinyoung wondered at how this starship had been outfitted: it seemed entirely too cosy, warm if rough around the edges for interstellar cargo runners with connections to the less-legal side of galactic trade. It was entirely unlike the many other ships he had been on: the oft-overdecorated official governmental vessels of the Republic, austere Jedi transports, and other trader-slash-smuggler ships.

“Did you furnish the ship, then?” Jinyoung asked, letting his curiosity overtake his restraint. Youngjae certainly had the warm, friendly sort of presence that would fit the ship’s outfittings.

“Oh, we all have a hand in it, though this was of course Jaebeom-hyung’s ship first.” Youngjae stood up and went to a panel in the wall. He pressed a slightly discoloured patch of wall and the panel popped open. “You can put your pack in here, if you’d like. Hyung got one of those puzzle locks. I can show you how to use it...?”

“Thank you,” said Jinyoung, “but that’s all right.” There wasn’t much of value in his pack, other than his datapad and spare survival capsules. Extra underpants, yes, but one could always do without them, in a pinch. And, most importantly, a lock that required the Force to manipulate.

“I’ll, um, I’ll just leave you to get settled in, then,” Youngjae said uncertainly, drifting to the door. “If you are hungry, there should be food in the galley in about two standard hours.”

Unrivalled hospitality, Jinyoung decided, even despite the grumpy captain and prickly co-pilot. He had a standard week to play the diplomat with them, in any case. And Yugyeom was easier to understand, now that Jinyoung knew he had emotional attachments to the place.

He only hoped the rumours of civil war had been greatly exaggerated.

**Now**

Leaving aside contemplating these allusions to mysterious intelligence brokers in the Khun system, Jinyoung was recently come into possession of a datastick. Hopefully it was as full of relevant intelligence as they thought.

The mission was never going to be straightforward, but the twists and turns that it had already taken _on the way to Khun_ was making Jinyoung a little desperate for more intelligence than he’d got in his mission briefing. He really ought to comm Master Gallia for some counsel before proceeding.

It occurred to Jinyoung, as he put a sleeve on the datastick — prophylactics for data, Master Tahl had told him with the same manic cheer she brought to drilling a working knowledge of Binary into the heads of those Initiates foolish enough to take her advanced coding classes — and stuck it into his datapad, that he never would have come across the hints of more at play than the usual factionalism within the Khun system, if not for his having fallen in with the Runaway.

Whatever happened was the will of the Force, as the theory instructors would have it.

Jinyoung just thought it was a lucky coincidence.

This was probably why he was stuck with combat instruction whenever he was back in the Temple. That, or basic diplomacy, for the higher initiates. A failure of logic, there — if Jinyoung could be trusted to have enough tact to conduct seminars on negotiation tactics, then surely he could be trusted to stick to the curriculum for theory courses. Not that he _wanted_ to teach those.

 _Beep_ went his data pad as it finished connecting with the data stick. The decompiler popped up, lines of Binary filling up the dark grey screen.

Shaking away thoughts of the past, Jinyoung frowned at his datapad, scanning through the syntax. It was definitely encrypted, but he wasn’t sure if there might be a booby trap or two hidden somewhere in the code as well. Force, if only he had a droid to help him with this. But Jaebeom only had C0-C0, who was very useful as an astromech but not ... for this. Oh, well, there was no matter for it; Jinyoung had learnt the importance of being able to do many things manually without reliance on droids or computer systems after being stranded in deep space, without communications, after his starship’s non-basic functions had sputtered out on him after a particularly narrow escape from a heated situation not half a standard year into his Knighthood.

He sank into the rhythms of hacking — Master Tahl was greatly displeased whenever she heard her students call it that, but really, that’s what it was — probing different paths, picking carefully around clues and loose ends he was unravelling, bit by careful bit. There was a key programme on his datapad that would help with this, but given the assumed sensitivity of the intelligence, Jinyoung wanted to check for mines first.

His eyes were blurring when something clicked, something Master Tahl had shown him when he’d visited her after he’d been released from the Healers after his last mission. A particularly nasty worm triggered precisely by a particular set of commands common to most key-testing programmes, like Jinyoung’s own. It was also, tellingly, said to have originated from somewhere in the Huttese sphere of influence.

Jinyoung sighed and leaned back against his bunk, thumping the back of his head against the soft blankets. He stayed there for a while, letting the ache seep out of his eyes and the currents of the Force soothe him.

The ripple in the Force and Jaebeom’s bright presence drawing nearer had him opening his eyes, just as Jaebeom leaned in through the door to ask, “All right?”

“No,” Jinyoung said honestly, and pressed his fingertips to his eyes so that all he saw were red veiny lines for a brief second.

“You haven’t rested at all, have you?”

“Neither have you,” Jinyoung retorted.

There was a chuff of laughter. Jaebeom’s presence drew closer. Jinyoung could feel the heat from his body and smell the plant-green scent of his soap. “At least I’ve washed up.”

Jinyoung opened his eyes and looked up at Jaebeom. “You needed it more.”

“Not going to argue with you there,” said Jaebeom, before coming round to sink down onto his haunches next to Jinyoung.

“That’s a first,” Jinyoung muttered.

Jaebeom smiled at him, wide and eyes disingenuously curving. “When do I ever argue with you?”

“I don’t have the energy for this now,” Jinyoung said, closing his eyes again.

“Ah,” said Jaebeom, shifting. “Can we help? Youngjae’s handy with this sort of thing, especially with C0-C0 to help.”

“An astromech?”

Jaebeom laughed. There was a slightly chiding ring to it. “Come on, Jinyoungie, you can’t possibly still think that’s all there is to anything on this ship after all this while.”

And so after some token protests about not involving the Runaway any more than he already had, Jinyoung was relegated to meditating on his bunk. Youngjae had taken one look at his datapad, snorted, and gone to fetch his own along with C0-C0.

“I customised mine,” Youngjae said cheerfully as he tapped away with much less hesitation than Jinyoung, even after Jinyoung had pointed out the worm. “Expressly for these purposes. No need to have anything above board when we report to no masters, you know!”

Jinyoung hummed, listening to the Force and feeling the way it eddied around Youngjae as he worked with C0-C0 to undo the traps and decrypt the datastick. He’d heard of this before, particularly mechanically inclined Force users. And the Force ran through all living beings, and bound the universe together, of course, but ... he sometimes wondered if like called to like, and Jaebeom had subconsciously picked up a crew of Force-sensitives.

His lack of an answer made Youngjae chirrup with laughter, before he fell to muttering quietly to C0-C0 as they worked in tandem.

C0-C0’s whirs and cheeps overlay Youngjae’s steady murmur; it was unexpectedly easy for Jinyoung to open up his senses and drift with the Force, to center himself again and draw strength from it.

He opened his eyes when Youngjae shouted, “GOT IT!” at the top of his lungs.

Youngjae’s broad, kind face was flushed with triumph as he unfolded himself from the reading chair in the corner and hurried over to Jinyoung. The holo projections from the custom-holo unit he’d installed on his datapad fuzzed briefly with the jolting that he was givin git.

“Hyung! Hyung!” Youngjae exclaimed, smiling broadly. An answering smile spread on Jinyoung’s own face, unbidden. “Look! There is _so much_.”

Jinyoung took the datapad from Youngjae, patting him on the forearm with his other hand. “Thank you, Youngjae-ah. I’ll just copy this over now.”

“That was a nasty one,” Youngjae said, beaming at him. “I really should put a patch out ...”

As he hummed his absent approval and sweeping his eyes down the data, a chill ran down Jinyoung’s spine.

He’d spoken with Master Umi Bulq before leaving on his mission — the Khun system straddled the Mid-Rim and the Hutt Empire. Jinyoung had wanted the Weequay Master’s insight into the slave rings that riddled the region, and guidance on what paths he could take should the Huttese slave rings come into play with these rumours of civil war.

But he had hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.

It seemed that it would be.

Then

“Whoa!” Jinyoung yelped, almost tripping over a long, shaggy leg that most definitely belonged to Yugyeom. “Kriffing —”

The young Wookie had sat himself just outside of Jinyoung’s door and looked up as Jinyoung swallowed a curse. “I didn’t know Jedi swore.”

“Jedi do many things,” Jinyoung said as mysteriously as he could manage, “Kim Yugyeom.” He paused, summoned up the beginner Shyriiwook he’d torn his throat apart learning as an Apprentice, and said, “ _Is there another name you’d prefer_?”

And then he coughed.

Shaggy brows furrowed, Yugyeom half-rose and asked, "Do you need a cough drop? We have some, somewhere."

Jinyoung blinked; he hadn't thought his Shyriiwook that rusty.

"Sorry, he said,"my pronunciation is atrocious. I meant to ask if you have another name you'd prefer."

"Oh," Yugyeom laughed, a full-throated Wookie thing. "No, no, I -- was adopted, and taken to Naboo."

Something stilled within Jinyoung. "Naboo? That is where my family is."

[getting to know Yugyeom and crew better, Yugyeom is adopted warms up exponentially when he learns Jinyoung was taken from Naboo. Jaebeom is like stop bothering our guest while downing caf.] Jinyoung tentatively compliments his furnishings and Jaebeom _blushes_. And then he shows Jinyoung the series of jumps that he plans to take.

“You’re not half bad,” Jinyoung said absently, fingers tracing their navigational path along the star charts hanging mid air.

Jaebeom stepped through one to join Jinyoung; his face was momentarily a star map.

Sardonically, the captain said, “Thanks.”

Jinyoung startled. “Oh, my apologies, captain. I —”

“Save it.” Jaebeom waved Jinyoung’s words away. “You’re hardly the first Jedi I’ve had on my ship.”

Something compelled Jinyoung to persist where prudence would have had him graciously acquiescing and retiring to his room for a little more meditation. “No, I really do apologise. This is very efficient.”

Jaebeom cut him a cool look, before turning away to the console. “I suppose we must be glad to have the approval of a member of the vaunted Jedi Order, then.”

 _What_ , Jinyoung did not say, _is your Kriffing problem_.

“Your feelings, captain,” Jinyoung said instead, giving up and turning to go, “are entirely your own.”

He almost walked straight into Youngjae when he turned the corner. It was embarrassing to realise that he had been so preoccupied with irritation that he hadn’t noticed the boy’s presence until it was nearly too late.

**Now**

Idk stuff happens in hyperspace they get to Khun and go looking for Bambam

Jinyoung presents himself to ... the parliament and gets himself locked up for his pains

**Then**

Jump stop 1

Cats

“Captain Im, I must take my leave of you here.”

“What?”

“A change of plans - I must investigate.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Jaebeom, catching him by the upper arm. “Of course we’ll take you.”

**Now**

The team break Jinyoung out as Jinyoung is breaking himself out

**Then**

Detoured stop 2

god imagine jaebeom just inviting himself along on jinyoung's mission

inyoung getting hit on in a bar and jaebeom is like \"oh god I have to go save the innocent jedi knight who doesn't have sex probably because they're all monks\"

jaebeom wondering if jinyoung even knows what sex is"

but then jinyoung just like TURNS IT ON to get intelligence and jaebeom is like *that surprised look (tm)*

jinyoung, later, when they've made their escape with the intelligence: It says no attachments, not no ... intercourse."

Jaebeom, teasing: so what you're saying is that jedi fuck and run"

JAEBEOM ARGUING WITH JINYOUNG ABOUT THE ORTHODOX JEDI CODE:

"What do you mean you don't allow yourself to feel emotions?"

Jinyoung: "No! We feel them and then release them into the Force!"

Jaebeom: "Well I like having my feelings, thanks," because he is A Passionate Man

jinyoung sees in jaebeom all these things he's been told all his life would lead to the dark side  
but he also sees a good, loving man

i just!!!! can you imagine jaebeom being this worldly (uh ... galaxy...ly?) pilot who's actually been down in the dirt with all these different cultures and religions who relate to the Force differently and practise with the Force differently and is like “why does it have to be only the one way?

and because jinyoung is Jinyoung, it's not like he hasn't had these thoughts as a baby jedi youngling in the Temple either or even as a padawan!!!"

**Now**

They regroup and wonder and go spy on different factions I guess - intelligence gathering

Jinyoung comms Adi Gallia - a secure commlink

**Then (a then very close to Now): Stop 3 (before co’ed wig)**

“Let there be truth between your heart and the Force”

i've been training for this it's been my life for so long and yet there's still some treacherous part of me that thinks this would be worth it all

Always in motion is the future, Yoda had once said to Jinyoung and his creche-mates. He hadn’t understood then, of course — how could they have?

BUT NO ATTACHMENTS OR LOYALTY EXTERNAL TO THE ORDER?  
what the heart wants VS what his training tells him except his heart wants to BELONG and his home for so long has been THE ORDER",

GOD, can you imagine, jaebeom, still a bookish dude, decides to Do Research, and idk they run into qui-gon on a mission. and qui gon recites the alternative version of the jedi code:

Emotion, yet peace.  
Ignorance, yet knowledge.  
Passion, yet serenity.  
Chaos, yet harmony.  
Death, yet the Force

it's like jaebeom's \"HAH! SEE!!!\" momenet but also jinyoung's I Am Having An Existential Crisis/Paradigm Shift Moments

bc jinyoung obviously has heard of master qui-gon jiinn and his slightly heterodox ways

Also jinyoung recognises the Living Force now when Jaebeom is playing with his five (5) space cats.

Upshot of this stop is that they trace the Toydarian to Coed’wig

**Now**

meet a contact Bambam set them up with in a burlesque club

Jaebeom literally turns to jinyoung, raises a cheeky eyebrow over his drink, and quotes, \"'passion, yet serenity'\"

Jinyoung came very close to throwing his drink in jaebeom's face.

OH GOD AND THEN THEY HAVE TO KISS TO GET AWAY FROM THEIR PURSUERS!!!!

and then they DO bang

jinyoung learns to flirt VERY WELL and kiss and things but then he just like, Force-suggests that people go to sleep so he's never banged anyone."

what happened to mister fuck and run?\" jaebeom teases, drawing a line up jinyoung's thigh with a finger. The joystick-callouses catch against the fine hair there; jinyoung shudders.

"nevertheless, he manages to retort, \"I never *confirmed* it."

"You didn't deny it either, mister semantics.

and wake up entangled in each other and jinyoung feels like he's shaving off a bit of his heart when he sits up and takes stock and is like \"what do I do now\". and then jaebeom rolls over to snuggle his hip, except jinyoung stiffens and jaebeom raises himself up on an elbow to peer at him. jaebeom is so ridiculously expressive it's obvious when his face stiffens in disappointment and - oh god, hurt, jinyoung's hurt him. weren't jedi supposed to be compassionate? and yet.\n\n\"no emotional attachments, right?\" jaebeom says, before collapsing back down onto his bunk. \"I know.\

jinyoung comms quigon from across the galaxy, because apparently qui-gon jinn is now gay yenta jedi uncle in this crossover

**Now**

“I didn’t _lie_ to you.”

“No, you just didn’t tell us the whole truth!”

“It’s still the truth.” Bambam paused, and shrugged fluidly. “From a certain perspective.”

“From a _certain_ —” The words caught in the back of Yugyeom’s throat, before he snarled wordlessly.

Bambam took a step back, his lekku swaying behind him.

“Enough of these semantics,” Jinyoung said, touching his hand to Yugyeom’s elbow.

One of the factions is being paid off/funded by a huttese slave rng

is also being funded by a slave cartel  
this faction is the one that's like trying to take over the whole Khun system and turn it into like a slave ... market

and Bambam being a Twi'lek is OBVIOUSLY V AGAINST SLAVERY

so he's like wHAT?!!!!!!?  
so they stage a thing where idk he escapes or "tricks" his way out or whatever  
and feeds them misinformation  
all part of the greater plan to like get the other factions to band together and be like nope bye

*

“Whatever happens is the will of the Force,” said Jinyoung quietly, looking down at their hands; the promontories of their knuckles, curled fingers like interlocking spurs, the burnished metal of the floor between their hands a wide, dull silver river.

it would be so easy to reach over and slide their fingers together, like younglings clinging onto each other for comfort in the creche. but the mere centimetres are like a unbridgeable divide. Jinyoung almost wishes that Jaebeom would be as bravely brazen as he pretends to be and reach across.

*

there is no way to reconcile this happily without jinyoung leaving the jedi order. so THEY LEAVE and SETTLE DOWN ON (cough) planet where jinyoung teaches kiddies bc he always enjoyed teaching the younglings in the Temple and jaebeom ..... is a short-haul cargo pilot"


	2. the long con

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka the pretend boyfriends but not really one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (eta) n.b. i chatficced (see: bellowed) large portions of this at bysine, who is long-suffering and magnanimous as can be

**Soompi: 5 times we really should have known + 1 the one time we were Told.**

\---

THE OTHER SHOE DROPS

The first hint of things being subnormal is when Sewoon-hyung's phone goes fucking apeshit the moment it connects to Korean service. 

He looks at it, goes pale, and everyone gets a blanket ban on even looking at their phones. 

The second hint is when Bambam sneaks a look anyway, lets out a suppressed shriek, a hissed _holy fuck_ , and starts battering Yugyeom's arm.

Electing to ignore them entirely, Jinyoung pulls his face mask up higher and slides his sunglasses on, never mind that it's almost midnight.

The third hint is when they're led on an abrupt detour away from public arrivals and ushered into some secret corridor. 

"What?" he hears Jaebeom asking from somewhere up ahead. "Hyung, what's going on?"

"It's for your safety," Sewoon-hyung says tersely. 

Everyone, now that Jinyoung is paying attention, is very tense.

The maknae are whispering in low, frantic murmurs to each other, Bambam tucked under Yugyeom for maximum privacy, though the hairs prickling on the back of Jinyoung's neck tell him that he's involved somehow. 

It's only when they're hustled into two vans in a security bay — Youngjae, Yugyeom, and Jaebeom in one, and everyone else in the other, that Bambam finally unleashes his ill-gotten knowledge.

"This scandal," he breathes, the very embodiment of scare quotes from his sarcastically widened eyes down to the curl of his middle and index fingers, "is, like, whoa." 

"'Like whoa'," Mark repeats drily.

"Bambam, we told you not to _look_ ," sighs Sewoon-hyung. 

"That's like telling a child not to lick the cake," Jackson points out, before taking out his own phone and flicking it on. Within seconds, his big eyes narrow before springing so wide Jinyoung fancies he can see them straining. "Holy _fuck_!"

"Okay," Jinyoung sighs, pulling his mask down and taking out his earphones. "What."

"Jinyoungie..." Jackson actually snatches his phone away, then freezes, guilt painted all over his face.

Sewoon hyung sighs even more gustily. "There was a photograph from a bad angle. Someone tweeted it out. It's blown up. PR is coming up with a plan and you'll meet them tomorrow with Jaebeo —"

"With Jaebeom?" Jinyoung interrupts, a growing sense of unease crawling up his chest. "Something bad enough we couldn't go out through arrivals? What did we do?"

Sewoon-hyung peers at him over the top of his glasses. If he sighed any harder, they'd have to name a typhoon after him. "Nothing ... you don't already do. I suggest you don't look at your phone til tomorrow morning. After your meeting." 

His phone sits in his pocket, heavy as a rock. 

"What time is it?" Jinyoung asks, fidgeting with the cuffs of his hoodie sleeves. "The meeting." 

"Eight thirty."

That is early. Very early. Jinyoung makes a note to bring in a tray of coffee for the PR team, undoubtedly pulling an all-nighter for whatever happened. The curiosity is chewing at him, but the dread is sticking in his chest. He doesn't have a good feeling about this. At all. 

"It'll be fine!" Jackson says, slinging an arm around Jinyoung and tugging him close for a cuddle. "Seriously, like Sewoon hyung said, just a bad angle! Nothing a statement can't sort out." 

*

Eight hours later, sitting in what Jinyoung privately has dubbed the war room, around a conference table with every last seat filled and Jaebeom's knee nervously jiggling away next to him, Jackson's words seem very much like famous last ones. 

They've just been subjected to a slideshow that started out with Twitter screenshots from hell and then the most outrageous PR plan that Jinyoung's ever heard of in his _life_. 

"You can't be serious," he says, feeling like his head is about to float off his neck. "What about the ... the netizens? The optics? Won't this make things _worse_?"

The director of PR herself is in attendance, and she raises a sceptical eyebrow at him. "You do remember the motto of our company?" 

"I don't see what being _leaders_ in _entertainment_ has to do with Jaebeom and I —!"" 

Jinyoung runs out of words there, more incredulous than anything else. He'd been right to feel dread yesterday night. He'd come in ready for a scolding, a reminder to not get complacent about the eyes on them all the time. He hadn't been ready for ... this. 

And next to him, Jaebeom is still fucking buffering, that gormless look that Jinyoung normally finds stupidly adorable very irritating in the moment.

What with the tightened security, Jinyoung hadn't had the time or leeway to go and get coffee. 

"If you thought about it a bit more," she says, "I think you'll find it does." 

Jinyoung straightens his spine and opens his mouth to say — something, anything.

But then VP Jung, who's worked most closely with the Got7 team, says in a tone meant to be conciliatory: "Well, you shouldn't have to change too much of your normal routine. We're not asking you to get married or anything, haha."

"Ha..." Jaebeom echoes slowly, finally coming alive, "ha."

" _Hyung_ ," Jinyoung says, annoyed. "Pull yourself together."

"Young-ah," murmurs Jaebeom. "I don't think we have a way out of this." 

VP Jung claps his hands together briskly and issues a bright, 'chin up, lads!' type smile around the room full of drooping PR peons. "Well! I think this will work out wonderfully!" 

*

The first person they see upon leaving the corporate floor and getting off on the practice room floor is Bang Chan, who very cheerfully says, "Congratulations on your nuptials!"

Jaebeom has a look on his face like he's still buffering, but also like he's reminiscing fondly of the trainee days when Bang Chan had been scared of him.

"We're not married," Jinyoung says, "Chan-ah. We're not even fake married."

"Really?" Bang Chan thumbs his phone unlocked. "Shit, I think Bambam's already gone to buy the letter balloons."

*

[DRAFT] Minutes - Got7 PR Meeting 2019/07/13

Manager Kim (Got7): doesn't understand why Dispatch is making a fuss now.  
They've just been doing this forever. See: fansite photos [?]

Manager Seon (Got7): Do you remember when Youngjae just decided to grind with a dancer on stage?

Manager Kim (Got7): Remember? It happened two days ago!

[what the heck - Seon sunbae says don't minute this]

VP Jung: It doesn't matter WHY, it just matters that THIS HAS BLOWN UP. How are we Moving Forward With This?

Mgr Kim (Got7): Well ... we could just put out a statement denying it.

Asst Team Leader Yook: Too late for such a simple solution. 3 main camps: the ones who believe it and support it; the ones who believe it and don't support it; the ones who think this is all a hoax by JYP for publicity purposes. The pink dollar, you know. Very strong now. Better than the Euro even. [to do: get slide deck]

VP Jung: All this overnight?

ATL Yook: time zones. Knet doesn't sleep. 

Min (Intern): that is GENIUS. [Min just dropped their pencil lol]

VP Jung: asked for explanation

Min: I mean, like, they could ... pretend it's real?

ATL Yook expressed his misgivings. 

Manager Seon gave a dramatic speech wrt JYP values and vision. 

VP Jung: PD-nim (JYP!) been making noise about diversity; equality act recently passed; timely and relevant plan. 

Motion to have Im JB (Got7) Park Jinyoung (Got7) fake date their way out of this fiasco [?!!?]

 _Seconded_ : Manager Kim, Manager Seon, VP Jung, Team Leader Yang, ATL Nam

Follow-up: Prepare an implementation plan BY FUCKING 8.30 AM TOMORROW.

*

AFTER THE OTHER SHOE DROPS

And that is how Jinyoung finds himself strangled with a cheap knock-off feather boa around his and Jaebeom's necks the moment they step into the dance practice room.

"Amazing! Lovely! Congraulations to the beautiful couple!" Bambam shouted.

Behind him, Youngjae and Yugyeom set off party poppers in perfect unison.

At least all that dance practice has paid off for something.

"Can't --" Jaebeom seems to have finally finished buffering to wheeze. "--breathe."

"I'm disowning all of you," Jinyoung vows vengefully as he yanks the feather boa loose. This inadvertently pulls Jaebeom towards him. Jaebeom stumbles, hands going up to the tightening feathery fuschia noose around his neck.

"NO, OUR PARENTS ONLY JUST GOT TOGETHER," Jackson wails and collapses to the floor. "HOW CAN _THIS BEEEE_???"

Mark's too busy dying of a gigglefit to be of any help, and Youngjae is now lustily singing a re-lyric-ed version of Day6's Congratulations.

"Hyung," Jinyoung glares at Jaebeom, who's finally freed himself of his feather prison and is sucking in deep breaths. "Do something about this."

Jaebeom scans the chaos, before turning to Jinyoung with a hangdog expression. "Is that even possible?" 

The madness continues: on his way to get organic ice cream from the JYP cafe, Chaeyoung and Mina from TWICE congratulate him through shy giggles. Hyunjin from Stray Kids stutters his way through a "I'm proud of you hyung" while Jisung tries to shake his hand.

Jinyoung's waiting for his ice cream when Ye Eun materialises next to him and starts laughing even before he says, "Oh god, not you."

"Wow, oppa," she deadpans, "I thought our timing filming together meant something to you."

"Please stop," he says, "before Dispatch tries to make this into a love triangle."

"Ew," she says decisively. "I don't go for idol boys."

"I am a man," Jinyoung says, collecting his double scoop of organic vanilla ice cream with strawberry sauce and chocolate fudge. "A manly man."

"You try," she says pityingly, and then thankfully stops paying attention to him when the barista asks her for her order.

He retells this to Jaebeom over their shared ice cream when he gets back to Jaebeom's studio, where they have retreated to regroup and discuss their implementation plan.

"Ye Eun-sshi is scary," Jaebeom says very unhelpfully. "The cafe staff all sign NDAs, right?"

"They should've really dissolved the Actor's department last year," Jinyoung says darkly.  
"And I guess."

Jaebeom is silent for an unnerving minute.

It's probably because he's put about a quarter of a scoop of ice cream into his mouth and is currently suffering brainfreeze.

Jinyoung silently pours out a cup of roasted barley tea from the massive flask that Jaebeom brings along to his studio whenever he's planning to get stuck in.

"Gahhhhhh," Jaebeom exhales when he finally swallows the giant scoop he just ate, and downs the tea in one go. "Thanks, Jinyoungie."

"This is weird, isn't it?" Jinyoung asks before he can stop himself. "I thought they'd release a press statement or -- just ... find another angle or something, you know?"

This time, Jaebeom is silent for a truly unnerving minute.

"We don't have to do this, you know," he says gently, putting the cup of ice cream down between them. "They haven't finalised the press release yet. If this is making you unhappy..."

And therein lies the rub, isn't it: if Jinyoung thinks about it, he's more weirded out by the okayness of everyone's reactions, and by this truly unprecedented, ground-breaking PR strategy. If Jinyoung interrogates his memory sufficiently, what he'd felt when the PR team had been presenting this plan, underneath the shock and disbelief, it hadn't been anything close to revulsion that had swept through him. Not at all.

*

**aramatheydidn't: JYP makes a statement surprising no one at all following The JJ Cross to End Them All**

...  
[blurb]

...

*

AUSTRALIA

Jinyoung's giving him such a look. 

It sears across backstage, makes it feel like summer instead of winter in Australia. 

"You shouldn't flirt with the fans like that," Youngjae says reprovingly, screwing the cap back onto his waterbottle next to him.

"It's just fanservice!" It's a weak protest, and Jaebeom knows it. 

Youngjae's frown deepens. "You're a taken man now, hyung! Publicly!"

Never let it be said that Jaebeom didn't dig the holes he's in even deeper. "I was just _doing my job_."

The pitying look that Youngjae gives him is almost worse than the iciness that seems to frost the very air around Jinyoung as he stalks back to their dressing rooms, all traces of his happy on-stage self dissolving into nothing. 

"Fix it, hyung!" Youngjae hisses, brushing past him. 

Jaebeom feels distinctly left behind. A dancer-hyung who's been with them for years laughs at him a little, slinging an arm around Jaebeom. "Trouble in paradise? Need advice?" 

He feels torn between gratitude that his dating -- fake-dating -- Jinyoung hasn't changed this hyung's treatment of him. On the other hand, this is excruciating on so many levels Jaebeom can't begin to pick them apart. They interleave. 

"No," Jaebeom says, patting hyung on the hip. How can he even begin to explain that there _is_ no paradise, when Jinyoung's hand-fed him on camera even before all of this, and now pouts Jaebeom into feeding him even when there are no cameras around; when Jinyoung seems to have fallen so easily into this part, sliding an arm through his elbow when they're getting through an airport; when the both of them have slipped deeper into easy affections that have always been there, just turning up the gain in so frictionless and unthinking a manner it hurts to think about. "I think it'll be fine, hyung." 

"This is why I never wanted to be an entertainer, you know," hyung says as he clings on so that they toddle on through the corridor in some strange four-legged combination. "I thought about auditioning when I was a kid too, but then I had a girlfriend then and didn't want to lose her, and she always got so jealous." He pauses. "We broke up anyway, but you know." 

Jaebeom wants to protest, to say that Jinyoung isn't _jealous_ , but there is no denying it: that he hates coming in second best to anyone in Jaebeom's affections, platonic or ... possibly otherwise. That he'll pout at the drop of a hat even if Jaebeom says someone else is cuter _just for fun_ , and that there'll be a well-hidden edge of true hurt somewhere in the depths of his eyes. 

For all these reasons and more: it's been so easy to sink into this whole performance, so easy to forget that this isn't reality.

He finally catches Jinyoung, who's been doing the thing where he curls in on himself to lick his wounds in peace when the staff deposit them back in the hotel with strict orders not to go out. 

They're in the corridor, standing in the no man's land between their rooms. 

It's quiet, the other members having disappeared into their rooms and the staff holding a debrief in the business suite one storey up. 

"Jinyoungie," he says rather hopelessly, reaching out to catch him by the fingers, tightening his grip when Jinyoung makes to pull away. "Jinyoungie, I'm sorry, please don't be angry with me."

"What's there to be angry about?" Jinyoung tugs harder, and Jaebeom lets go for fear of hurting him by holding on too hard. Jinyoung smacks his room card against the reader. "We're not actually dating." 

"I," Jaebeom says, reeling a little. There's an edge to Jinyoung's voice he can't quite fully decode, but he understands enough to know that Jinyoung really is hurt, and embarrassed about it, to know that this is something he has to de-escalate right the fuck now. "But you're not happy, though." 

Jinyoung makes an impatient noise, jerking his head involuntarily to the side so his fringe, grown long and limp with sweat, hides his eyes without gel to hold it in place. "I'm just tired, hyung. Of course you can do fanservice if that's what you want."

"I don't want to make you unhappy," Jaebeom says, trying to infuse his voice with as much sincerity as possible. 

Jinyoung's breath stutters on his next inhale. He shoves his door open, gesturing with his head for Jaebeom to follow him in. 

"This isn't a conversation for a hotel corridor." 

Jaebeom couldn't walk away at this point, anyway. 

He steps into the room after Jinyoung, toeing his trainers off and kicking them into a neat heap. His socked feet sink into the plush carpet and he almost sighs with relief; that feels so nice. 

Before he can resume whatever point it was that he'd been trying to make, nascent as it is, Jinyoung heaves a sigh and flops into the armchair next to the window. The back of his wrist is pressed into his eyes; he hasn't taken out his contacts yet; they must be so very dry. 

"I know you don't," Jinyoung says, so still apart from his moving mouth that he looks like some kind of sculpture Jaebeom saw with him in the Louvre. "I know you're just doing your job and enjoying yourself on stage. I know I'm ... overreacting. I'm not unhappy, really." 

Jaebeom opens his mouth and shuts it again. 

His mind churns like a stormy sea. Sentences start, half-form, and disintegrate like waves crashing together. 

*

[+2453, +998] it's crazy how credulous people are kkk this is obviously all a sham

[+001, +4423] foreign influence!!! 

[+9242, +437] wow ... i can't decide if this is a waste of such handsome men or a gift ... 

[+235, +6487] i don't really follow idol news but their story touched me a lot. They've been through so much together! Even this. If it isn't true i hope the best for them as friends anyway. Fighting, jj project! 

*

BKK 7 SECRETS

Piggybacking ridiculousness

"Are you sure," Jinyoung says, touching the small of Jaebeom's back before he can stop himself. 

*

Dkdktv thing/some kind of tv media coverage

*

CHUSEOK

jinyoung takes jaebeom home

and absolutely No One is surprised

jinyoung: this is going really wel!!!

jaebeom: internal crisising

Jaebeom: burns tongue on kimchi stew

jinyoung: maybe we should hold hands for longer, noona said it was weird that we only shake hands

jaebeom: chokes on the homemade sikhye

noona to jinyoung: why does jaebeom still look at you like he WANTS to date you, not that you are dating?

jinyoung: i -- what?

poor jaebeom, being observed closely by all 3 park siblings  
OVERWHELMED

Earlier having panic lied about loving basketball for NO REASON

It was information no one NEEDED OR ASKED FOR; he just volunteered it in the spirit of flustered deception

jinyoung's noonas are like, "...jaebeom-ah we've known you since you were 15, when have you ever been into basketball"

jaebeom, flustered: recently! I got into it recently! I go play pick up games with some of the guys from day6 sometimes! 

jinyoung: cracking up in the bg

luckily jinyoung's noonas find it cute that he's panicking so hard

"it means he really cares!!!"

jaebeom just looks to jinyoung for help, basically waving semaphore flags with his gaze

also just imagine jb sitting in like jinyoung's family home's living room  
just like  
listening to all that satoori washing over him  
the jaunty rise and fall of the lilt like a sea shanty  
the push and pull of the conversation swelling and falling like the tides  
he understands maybe one word out of five, but is content to sit cross-legged next to jinyoung on the floor, their knees touching, and file away all the ways in which jinyoung's family resemble each other; all the different tics and mannerisms that jinyoung is made up of.

SO MUCH FOOD  
HE HAS TO EAT ALL OF IT  
ALL THIS SEAFOOD  
THE GRILLED EEL  
THE RICE

TV on in the background all the time  
CORREC TTHERE'S JUST LIKE OLD EPISODE RERUNS OF STRONG HEART OR SOMETHING IN THE BG  
(so i can put a lee seung gi reference in...just for you)  
Ldw did strong heart at one point also i think!  
like day 1: it's lsd  
lsg  
day 2: they timeskipped to ldw  
throughout: kang hodong is the constant

*

2nd twitter thread statement (screenshot and RT'd in k-stan twt)

*

JINYOUNG'S BIRTHDAY

jaebeom 100% writes that bc he's like "this is what a good boyfriend would write, right? also it's true. so this works out perfectly, I don't have to LIE."

youngjae: . . . sure ... hyung ... tell yourself ... that ...

jaebeom taking the overnight ktx down to busan to Surprise Jinyoung On The Morning Of His Birthday: he'll never expect this and if I get caught by Dispatch, Even Better.

sungjin, back in seoul, who helped jaebeom figure out the ktx online booking system: I hope it works out for you crazy kids

and then jaebeom gets totally stranded at the docks in Busan because it's high tide and he can't just walk over to the island that Jinyoung's family home is on

it's so late/early that there are no boatmen

he is Panicking because This has to be PERFECT

so he ends up calling one of jinyoung's noonas

"Why are you pretending," she grumbles sleepily, even though she's already grabbing her keys, "when there is nobody around to see this?"

Her husband has a little motorboat that they use to go boating and fishing on days off, and off they chug over the little channel with Jaebeom's apology coffee he got at the one 24/7 convenience store at the end of the docks.

"Also, you were just here last week for Chuseok," she says. The wind is balmy against their cheeks. Jaebeom is not entirely sure that Minjeon-sshi is awake, but he doesn't want to question a Jeju native when it comes to boating.

"Well, I had to go home to my parents ..." Jaebeom says, fidgeting with the coffee cup in his hands, "but I thought, you know, it's Jinyoungie's birthday and it'd be weird if I weren't here for it... I brought presents...?"

Just under the loud, constant rumble of the boat engine, Minjeon-sshi mutters, "May the gods have mercy on all our souls."

And then he takes an enormous gulp of coffee.

"I ... am sure Jinyoungie would appreciate the presents," Soyoung-noona says drily.

With that, they're pulling into the residential pier that abutts the narrow waterfront strip of shops and watering holes serving the sparse population of Udo island. On the other end of the island is the walkway linking up with mainland Busan, currently submerged under at least a metre of seawater.

"Thank you for helping me," Jaebeom says guiltily as he steadies Soyoung-noona whilst she climbs out of the boat.

Minjeon-sshi is busy doing boat-y things.

"What was I supposed to do when you just sounded like a wet puppy in the rain?" Soyoung says with some asperity, making Jaebeom feel nothing so much like a very wet and very cowed puppy in the rain.

They climb up the wending path from the pier along the main street before turning into the sidepath along which the Park family home is situated.

"Well," Soyoung says, gesturing him in. "It's six in the fucking morning, so you can either sleep in the living room or risk your life waking Jinyoungie up."

"No," Minjeon-sshi says firmly, taking his shoes off and putting on the house slippers with his name embroidered into the top by Jinyoung's eomma. "I am taking the living room sofa."  
Jaebeom eyes the slippers a little enviously.

Nothing escapes Soyoung's eyes apparently, much like her younger brother, because she pats him on the back and says, "Stick around long enough and you'll get your own Park Slipper."

"I, uh." Jaebeom looks wildly around and shifts his backpack higher on his back. "Isn't it weird for me to just ... go into Jinyoungie's room like this?"

Soyoung gives him a dead-eyed look. "Weirder than you just travelling down here in the dead of the night?"

"Leave the man alone," Minjeon-sshi says, pulling Soyoung into the living room with him, "he should take responsibility for his own fate."

The living room door slides firmly shut behind them, and Jaebeom is left to attempt to very quietly creep up the stairs to Jinyoung's room.

*

jinyoung's having that recurring dream about forgetting his lines in a pivotal scene of he is psychometric, and the usually unflappable kwon-hyung very much getting flapped, when something tugs him back to consciousness.

he opens his eyes and, for a moment, thinks that he's experiencing sleep paralysis for the first time in his life when he can't move and there's a weight on his chest.

then he blinks a bit, and the dark figure over him resolves into --

"Hyung?" he rasps incredulously.

Even in the watery dawn light filtering in around the edges of his curtains, Jaebeom's face half in shadow, the sheepish crinkle of his eyes and broad, white grin on his face is lovely.

"Hi," Jaebeom says, "Jinyoungie."

Jinyoung decides that he must be dreaming, because he is in Jinhae and last time they texted Jaebeom was in his studio in Seoul.

There is no way Jaebeom could be in his bed and sitting on him; no way really that Jaebeom could ever ben in his bed other than in his dreams.

It's the only reason that Jinyoung frees one of his hands from the blanket drawn taut against him to reach weakly up and draw a questing finger down the line of his jaw.

"Uh," says dream Jaebeom, which is very realistic. The uneven stubble is also very realistic.

"Happy birthday?" dream Jaebeom catches his hand and holds it, shaking their clasped hands a little like a pompom.

Jinyoung blinks up at him slowly and stickily.

Huffing out a soft laugh, dream!Jaebeom releases Jinyoung's hand back to him and pets at his hair. "You're still mostly asleep, huh. Sorry, go back to sleep, Jinyoungie."

That honestly sounds like a great idea, even though Jinyoung hates the dreams where he falls asleep; he always wakes up feeling even more tired.

With Jaebeom petting clumsily at his head, though, Jinyoung finds it very easy to let his eyelids weigh down again and let the warm, cosy, darkness take him under.  
man then jinyoung wakes up

and jaebeom's just kind of like ... RIGHT THERE, smelling like the ktx and the salt of the sea, his stupid face with all those strong bones sharpened by the stress and constant work of the past year

they're SO CLOSE that jinyoung can see the pink veins on his thin, pale eyelids

"Your skin," Jinyoung hears himself muttering entirely without his own permission, "is so annoyingly perfect."

Jaebeom grunts and startles awake; he goes a little cross-eyed trying to focus on Jinyoung, which is annoyingly endearing.

"Whu?" jaebeom says blearily; he looks like he's going to just roll over and bury his face in his stolen pillow and fall immediately back asleep the way Jinyoung knows he's 100% capable of.

"Hyung," Jinyoung says a little louder, pushing at him. "Why are you here?"

And then the situation hits Jinyoung: he is in his bed, in Jinhae, at home, in his pyjamas, and Jaebeom is in the same bed as him dressed in his hobo working-in-the-studio chic

At least he's on top of the covers, Jinyoung thinks absently, even as the rest of his brain is whirring frantically away about the appearance of a surprise Jaebeom in his bed.

"Am I dreaming?" he asks the world at large, or at least his room at large.

That makes Jaebeom laugh; the coffee-sour tang to his breath is proof enough that Jinyoung is very much awake.

"No, I'm here," Jaebeom says, eyes folding into fond crescents even as he wiggles himself further into the top of Jinyoung's duvet, hands tucked under a fluffy fold of it. "Happy birthday, Jinyoungie."

And then he yawns, and the sight of his gaping maw is enough to wake Jinyoung all the way up and confirm that this really is Im Jaebeom in his bed for some bizarre reason on the first morning of his 26th year of life.

Jaebeom unhinges his jaw like a fucking anaconda and inhales half his bowl of rice when they make it down for breakfast.

how eomma knew jaebeom was here, jinyoung doesn't --

Soyoung-noona walks into the kitchen then.

"oh," he says out loud.

"ah," eomma says, eyes sparkling as she fries up some more kimchi and spam, "our jaebeom eats __So well__"

"He eats like he's a runaway from north korea," Soyoung-noona says, pouring herself some soup.

"How would you know what a north kroean refugee eats like?" Jinyoung prods, accepting the bowl of rice that Eomma passes him while putting the freshly fried plate of kimchi down in the middle of the table.

"Eom'nim," Jaebeom slurs, before swallowing his mouthful with some effort. "Come eat with us."

"Aigoo," his mother coos to Jinyoung's mix of horror and satisfaction. This has been a very unsettling morning. "So polite! And so handsome even when your face is puffy!"

Jinyoung laughs quietly into his seaweed soup.

Under the table, Jaebeom knocks their ankles together.

Jinyoung kicks him back gently, and they start up an increasingly ungentle game of kicking each other before Sooyoung-noona barks, "No footsie at the breakfast table!" sternly.  
It being a loan word, Eomma is completely lost. "Foo-what?"

"Um," Jinyoung stammers. "It's nothing, Eomma, sorry."

Sooyoung noona snorts.

"Where's Minjeon-hyung?" Jinyoung asks in a desperate attempt at distraction.

"Oh, he had to go back to the mainland for work, poor man," Sooyoung-noona says. "He says 'happy birthday, Jinyoung-ah' and that he'll see you at dinner tonight. He's very excited about eating at a fancy Western place."

"Oh no," Eomma says, the conversation sort of just rolling on before Jinyoung can say anything. It's a very familiar feeling whether it be at home or with Got7. "Will they be able to take one more reservation?"

Jaebeom blinks up at them from where he's chewing through another mouthful of rice and kimchi, cheeks bulging like a hamster. Sometimes Jinyoung wonders what's wrong with himself, but then Jaebeom does things like take the KTX overnight on a whim to spend his birthday with him, even though they're only pretending to be boyfriends.

"I'll get unnie to call them," Sooyoung says -- again, before Jinyoung can even interject. 

Jaebeom's really struggling to get this mouthful down. 

"She'll definitely get another seat out of them, most popular Italian place in Busan or no."

"Tha's oh 'ee-," Jaebeom manages to get out, hand covering his mouth politely. "-Eally."

"Jaebeom-ah," Jinyoung says patiently, knowing that arguing is a lost cause. He pushes Jaebeom's jaw shut and pats him gently on one bulging cheek. "Chew."

Eomma's eyes are sparkling again when she glances between them, and Jinyoung feels the flush start from his sternum and spread like fire up to the tips of his ears.

"What a nice birthday you're having already, Nyoung-ah," she says. "I think it will be a good year for you."

Jinyoung secretly hopes so too.

the birthday present other than jb's shitty presents bought in a panic at various stores on his way from the studio to the KTX station

the TRUE BIRTHDAY PRESENT IS THEM CONFESSING TO EACH OTHER

and then panicking about whether it'd be okay or not in the long run

they call long-running manager hyung #1

he's like "ah, jinyoung-ah, happy birthday!"

and then eh hears jaebeom whispering something in the background and is like "...is jaebeom there with you?"

"we're planning a selca," jinyoung says. "for, um, veracity."

"SPEAKING OF VERACITY," jaebeom yells into the phone from half a foot away.

Before he can go on any further, though, hyung says, "Wait, shit, did you actually sort your shit out?" 

In the distance, an indistinct voice says, "Ha! You owe me 50 thousand won." 

they can touch faces whilst not-watching lsg complain about being left behind on an old episode rerun of 2d1n

*


End file.
